Razor's Edge

Early on in my fundraising career, I worked at a small nonprofit that heavily relied on corporate funding and was trying to grow its individual donor base. In my interview, the director of development told me that they had not received an individual gift at the “major gift” level yet. I asked him what amount qualified as a major gift for their organization and he said $10,000 or above.

On my second day, my account for Raiser’s Edge (the fundraising database) still wasn’t set up, so I emailed my boss and asked to use his login to run some initial reports on giving. He had worked there for over three years, so I assumed he could offer insight into previous campaigns and trends.

His response was to come over to my desk, and, in a low voice, tell me that HE DIDN’T REMEMBER his login information, and hadn’t accessed the database in MONTHS. When he needed a report, he just asked the Finance/HR Director (who was certified in RE) to run the report and send it to him via email. I was shocked.

When I finally got my login information the next day (from the Finance/HR Director), I pulled a giving report from the last year and was shocked again. An individual had donated $30,000 over the holidays (FIVE MONTHS PRIOR).

When I told my boss, he had NO IDEA! Not one phone call or in person visit was made. Not even a tax acknowledgement for the end of the year!

In the end, an overdue thank you phone call from the CEO was made, and after a few weeks the Finance Director and I became fast friends and we began sending regular reports to my boss and the CEO so that no gifts were missed. Woo!

- Celeste

Maryland

PS. Special shout out to all those HR/Operations/Finance Directors who wear an infinite number of hats! We could not do this with you!